Service providers, such as financial intermediaries and businesses, desire accurate information about the characteristics and demands of potential markets. These types of information enable the service providers to target their product and/or service offerings more effectively to markets of interest. Thus, service providers typically employ a number of marketing techniques and/or tools, such as researching publicly available information, conducting market research, commissioning surveys and employing third party systems that purport to identify potential markets, to identify marketing opportunities.
Prior to employing one or more of these marketing techniques and/or tools for identifying market opportunities, a service provider typically broadly defines a geographic area of interest. Thereafter, the service provider employs one or more techniques and/or tools and targets marketing efforts, such as a television, radio, mass mailing, and/or telephone campaign, to the defined geographic area. The effectiveness of these techniques and/or tools is limited at best, since their implementations are usually based on weak identification of the potential market. Additionally, market research and other techniques implemented with statistical data is subject to limitations based on the statistical validity of the sampled data.
The cost and efficacy of these marketing techniques and tools also vary widely. Additionally, many of tools, such as the third party systems, are not targeted to a specific business, but are typically marketed to all types businesses. As such, these tools frequently fail to target markets that are most appropriate for specific businesses. Third party systems provide only an engine to map data and do not provide analytic tools or models for analyzing the data. Moreover, third party systems, specifically third party mapping systems, are also subject to statistical variability and are inherently limited by the quality of the data upon which statistical models in the systems are based.
The information obtained from these marketing techniques and tools is often difficult to analyze. Currently, most demographic information employed in marketing techniques and tools is generally available on the bases of a Metropolitan Statistical Area. For example, the Washington, D.C. Metropolitan Statistical Area includes twenty-seven counties, many with widely divergent characteristics and demographics. Therefore, without customized analysis, the information obtained from these Metropolitan Statistical Areas is insufficient to enable specific businesses to target products and/or services effectively to likely receptive markets. Demographic information may also be obtained from national census data. However, this data is updated once every ten years and is frequently out of date.
Therefore, substantial resources are typically expended on marketing techniques and tools to reach individuals who are not likely to be interested in the products and/or services offered by specific businesses. Furthermore, the rate at which a campaign reaches potential interested consumers is relatively low. As a result, many marketing efforts are scattershot approaches that are not well-focused. Current marketing techniques and tools also increase the cost but do not necessarily increase the effectiveness of marketing efforts.